By Tim Montgomerie
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In the Washington Examiner Cal Thomas has hit back at reports that Vice President Joe Biden likened the Tea Party to "terrorists":
"It is not Tea Party people who are the "terrorists." A terrorist seeks to destroy. Who is the real destroyer in the debt-ceiling debate? Who wants to continue spending money we don't have, borrowing it from nations like China that would be happy to destroy us if our politicians don't do it first? Tea Party people simply want to make their government accountable again and for this they are called "terrorists"?"
The Vice President has denied making the remarks but in the Boston Globe Jeff Jacoby is not ready to believe him:
"What makes Biden’s denial so implausible is that liberals and Democrats have been flinging the “terrorist’’ slur across the aisle for weeks...
Listen, for example, to former Obama administration official Steven Rattner, speaking on MSNBC last week: “These Tea Party guys are, like, strapped with dynamite, standing in the middle of Times Square at rush hour and saying, ‘Either you do it my way, or we’re going to blow you up, ourselves up, and the whole country up with us.’ ’’
Or to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, warning that “if sane Republicans do not stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst, the Tea Party will take the GOP on a suicide mission.’’
Or to Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House minority whip, talking about “Russian roulette’’ with loaded chambers, and how House Republicans “want to shoot every bullet they have at the president.’’
Or to former Ted Kennedy aide William Yeomans, now an American University law professor, who says labeling Tea Party Republicans “hostage-takers’’ doesn’t go far enough, since “they have now become full-blown terrorists.’’
And as Jacoby also writes, were these the same Democrats who called for more sensitivity of language after the Tucson shootings?
The left ARE insane. Now a terrorist is someone who wants their elected representatives to behave in a fiscally responsible way.
Posted by: Jack Pershing | August 04, 2011 at 07:14 AM
Daniel Foster had brief discussion about this with David Weigel on Blogging Heads.
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/37848?in=31:51&out=41:51
Posted by: Dave B | August 04, 2011 at 07:50 AM
Seems a bit rich for the Tea Party folks to now be complaining about heightened language and misplaced metaphors, given all the 'lock and load' rhetoric that they have put forward over the last couple of years.
Pot calling kettle and all that.
Posted by: Feodor Augustus | August 04, 2011 at 11:34 AM